


Find a Place With You

by Toboe_LoneWolf



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Catra (She-Ra) Acts Like a Cat, F/F, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28551609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toboe_LoneWolf/pseuds/Toboe_LoneWolf
Summary: No matter where Catra goes, Adora will follow: from childhood to war tohome.OR5 times Catra found a position only a cat would be comfortable with, and 5 times Adora found a way to fit in anyway.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 126





	Find a Place With You

**Author's Note:**

> In the immortal words of Noelle Stevenson: _yes Catra is a complex character whose story we worked very carefully on but also, literally just a cat_
> 
> Also: whoa first fanfic here; let's roll

**One:**

Adora finds Catra in a box.

This isn’t anything new; there are hundreds of boxes in the Fright Zone, all perfect places to hide in and crawl under and jump on – practice for when they’ll be sent out to liberate Etheria. Adora has learned that Catra in particular _really_ likes boxes.

Today Shadow Weaver told Adora that she is four and a _half,_ which means she gets two gray ration bars all to herself. Adora doesn’t understand why Shadow Weaver thinks that being a half is important, or that Shadow Weaver has to constantly remind everyone. Catra says it’s because otherwise Adora would forget, _“'Cause we don’t need to remember, but_ you _do.”_ And then to prove that Catra doesn’t need reminders, she’d run off before Adora could give Catra her part of the ration bars.

After getting swarmed by the rest of her year-group, Adora has only just managed to emerge clutching her remainder half saved for Catra, the last one.

She spends the next hour searching through the Fright Zone hallways for Catra, until Adora pries off the upside-down cardboard box covering the _other_ box Catra is hiding in.

Catra is curled up on her side, head shoved in one corner of Her Box, ears folded tightly back, knees and hands tucked inside, feet pressed snugly against the opposite end of the box. Her yellow eye blinks up at Adora and Catra hisses, “Go _away,_ Adora.”

“You missed dinner,” Adora points out, holding out the saved piece.

Catra doesn’t budge from the box. “Don’t want it.”

Which, okay, fine – but then what was Adora supposed to do with Catra’s part?

In grand four-and-a-half year old logic, Adora concludes that this means she should get in the box too.

_(There is no logic. Adora just wants to be next to Catra.)_

Looking down at Catra from the edge of the box, Adora tries to see if there’s any space leftover for her. There isn’t. Catra looks up, glaring at Adora, the tip of her tail wiggling (the only part free to move within the confines of the box), as if daring Adora.

Well then.

Adora crawls into the box anyway, her hands mashing Catra in the face as Adora’s foot jams into Catra’s stomach. Catra squirms and hisses, but for some reason does not scratch Adora in retaliation.

_(There is no reason. Catra just doesn’t want to leave ~~Adora~~ the box.)_

In the end, Adora wedges herself into the space around Catra’s middle. Adora is sitting upright, hands wrapped around her knees. Catra’s still curled up on her side, but now her face is pressed up against Adora’s thighs. The ration bar is squashed against Adora’s chest, throughly flattened.

There is absolutely no way any of this is comfortable.

They fall asleep anyway, secure in the knowledge that they are together.

**Two:**

There’s always construction in the Fright Zone, which means there are _always_ leaning, teetering pyramids of scrap-junk supplies everywhere. Even on the upper levels.

So of course Adora finds Catra skipping simulator training (again) perched precariously between two supply piles, lounging as if she were in a hammock – except there is no hammock. For a brief second, Adora marvels at Catra’s incredible sense of balance, to be able to support herself in mid-air with her shoulders lounging on an broken chair scoop and her feet propped up on a sandbag.

“Hey Adora,” Catra drawls, swinging as if she wasn’t propped up an additional fifteen feet above the tower rooftop.

Adora rolls her eyes, not bothering to ask how Catra’s managing to pull off her gravity-defying stunt, or point out that Catra missed practice. It’s _Catra._

“ _Why_ do you always choose the most inconvenient places to play hooky?” Adora grumbles as she drags some crates over, arms straining as she rearranges the junk on the rooftop.

Catra yawns, and Adora tries not to freak out as Catra’s body stretches, making her barely-stable supports shift with the movement.

“Maybe I just prefer a different training regimen,” Catra retorts. “Reconnoitering defensible positions within a given territory.”

“That is in no way a defensible position,” Adora stabs a finger upward.

Catra rolls over, and now Adora has a completely different view to freak out about. There is literally nothing supporting Catra’s middle. Adora has no idea how Catra’s pulling any of this off. Catra’s support pillars creak and bend, and yet she sways completely unfazed. Adora quickly turns around and resumes her mini-building project, because staring at Catra’s unsupported chest is not productive. Well technically Adora knows for a fact that Catra’s chest _is_ supported _— aaaand nope not thinking about that now!_

“I see absolutely no downsides of this,” Catra practically purrs as she looks down at Adora industrially stacking heavy crates. _Nice._ Perhaps all those weight-lifting classes (which Catra also skips out on) do have benefits.

Adora whirls around and kicks one of Catra’s scrap piles. Catra yelps as everything shifts, and for a moment Adora feels bad until Catra flips to slide, still not falling. The junk-heaps resettle into one tall pile and one much shorter, and now Catra reclines as if she were kicking back her chair in tactics class.

“Ha! Still here, dummy,” Catra taunts, her tail curling.

At least now Adora doesn’t have to climb as much on her _much_ more stable platform made of crates, as she clambers up to be at the same height with Catra. “Did you not want to be?”

Catra’s tail twists and curls again. “Better than running through simulator training scenario three billion or whatever,” Catra grumbles, leaning back with her hands behind her head.

“Shadow Weaver’s going to be mad at you—”

“Ugh, can we just _not—!”_

“Fine, fine, just do your thing,” Adora sighs, lying down so that she’s alongside Catra. Except on a far more solid scaffold than Catra’s winding pile of junk. At this angle, they have a perfect view of the sunset, which fades eerily in brilliant red against the Fright Zone’s smog.

This is how it works: Catra picking the highest, tallest, weirdest perch and Adora climbing to take a place next to Catra.

**Three:**

This is how it works: Catra runs away while She-Ra tries to catch up to her. Except Catra doesn’t run for long because she can’t resist turning to slash at She-Ra; to get up in her face and taunt her. They both know this, this dance of theirs.

In the forest, in the canyon – Catra leaps and snarls, just out of reach as She-Ra charges ahead.

_(If Catra was telling the truth, this would be just like old times; the times they would spar late at night in the training rooms.)_

_(Except Catra doesn’t want to remember the old times.)_

“What’s the matter, Adora? Can’t keep up? Guess you’ve been slacking off in training—”

_(Catra lies.)_

She-Ra growls, swinging her sword in huge sweeps that are child’s play to dodge, and Catra laughs as she bounds up a sheer vertical cliff face using her claws. Big as She-Ra is, there’s no way for She-Ra to climb without transforming her sword, and that’ll make her vulnerable. Or as vulnerable as a magical warrior princess can be.

Except Adora knows Catra, _and_ now she knows She-Ra. Adora roars, and leaps up at the cliff holding her sword in one hand, and plunges the Sword of Protection into the cliff-face like Etheria’s largest piton. Feet bracing on the rock, She-Ra yanks out her impromptu-sword-piton and leaps upward again, and Catra has to scramble out of the way as Adora crashes next to Catra. Catra’s eyes widen as She-Ra’s left hand punches the cliff-face to _make_ a handhold, and her right hand points her sword at Catra.

“Just stop it, Catra!”

“Never!”

_(If Adora was telling the truth, there’s some part of her that misses this; the only times when she gets to see Catra.)_

_(Except Adora shouldn’t want to miss fighting Catra.)_

Catra quickly realizes this is a losing proposition when She-Ra can leap farther than Catra _and_ has enough brute strength to just punch her own handholds. Catra slides back down, her mane rippling in the air, scampering to avoid She-Ra’s crushing blows.

_(Adora misses anyway.)_

**Four:**

Adora doesn’t understand how Catra can take up _so much space_ when she’s as thin as a rail. And yet, there she is, sprawled out across a good third of the spaceship bridge perimeter. Seriously. What.

And yet, Adora can’t get angry. Instead of curling up in a small ball to sleep, for some reason Catra is napping as if she needs to claim the entire spaceship as her own. One arm is sprayed against the spaceship window in one direction, the other hanging down in the complete opposite. One foot is propped up against the window frame. On top of that, Catra’s sleeping horizontally across the ledge, for maximum surface area coverage.

It’s a massive contrast to recent memories of Catra hiding in the brig, rarely emerging. This is a much better view.

Also astounding is how Catra _hasn’t_ woken up yet. She’s a light sleeper, and nightmares from Prime’s ship are still frequent enough that Catra naps throughout the day rather than getting a full night’s sleep. On top of that, the brig apparently holds bad memories, so Catra has taken to napping literally anywhere else on the spaceship _except_ her room.

Adora’s found Catra in the engine room, napping on top of piping. Amid storage boxes. Squeezed in a wire closet. Underneath Entrapta’s bench, somehow. On Glimmer’s bed, just to annoy her. In the captain’s chair. Against the airlock, which gave both Bow and Adora a heart-attack. Once, literally inside the machine being used as the _oven_ , of all things.

And of course, at Adora’s feet, although the only sign of Catra having been there is the half-circular dent at the end of the mattress and the tiny nicks on the bedsheets.

When Adora walks over to Catra and there’s still no sign of her waking up, Adora can’t resist sitting next to Catra, on the leftover bit of ledge that Catra isn’t sprawling on. Adora scoots as close as she can get to Catra in the tiny pocket of space remaining, planning on teasing Catra when she wakes up; that Adora _can_ in fact be stealthy. Except, after a few moments, that doesn’t seem enough.

When Glimmer comes in later with dinner, she sees Adora sitting asleep along the edge of the spaceship bridge. A moment later Glimmer is shocked to see Catra’s form just behind Adora’s legs, partially hidden from view. Adora’s basically resting in the space Catra isn’t; a strange X-shaped intersection of limbs and relaxation. It _should_ look cramped, both of them tucked on the bridge’s ledge, and yet Glimmer thinks it weirdly makes sense.

For some reason Catra hasn’t jumped up startled like literally every other time Glimmer walks in on Catra napping somewhere inconvenient, so it doesn’t register in Glimmer’s mind until much later that in the reflection on the spaceship window she’d seen a faint smile on Catra’s face (not a smirk, but a real smile). And Adora – when was the last time Glimmer had _ever_ seen Adora nap?

Before Wrong Hordak can announce that they’ve brought edible sustenance, Glimmer elbows him into silence and immediately turns around.

“Let them sleep,” Glimmer whispers.

**Five:**

Catra has no idea how she’s gotten into this mess. She groans. No, she definitely knows how she’s gotten into this mess, and it starts and ends with the letter “A.”

_Why_ did anyone think “Catra” and “children” would be a good idea? Ah yes, put the evil cat-lady who’s barely managing their self-imposed reparations mission with a bunch of way-too-squishy children who _should_ have gone absolutely screaming in fright back to their parents the moment they saw Catra but instead utterly swarmed her with no concept of “personal space” because anyone who’s standing next to She-Ra cannot possibly be bad.

Adora had fallen over laughing at Catra standing stock-still as Etherian children climbed up on Catra like a reverse cat-scratching post. Because they’d never seen a magicat before and they wanted to see her claws and her ears and compare fur types and play with her super-bushy-tail. Before, if Catra had known kids would willingly suicide themselves towards her, the Horde could have taken over about 75% faster. Now, Catra is frozen as if she so much as twitched, some kid would explode.

The kids didn’t. Catra did.

Adora’s still laughing at the sight of Catra yelling “GAAAAAAAAAAAAH” and being chased by a mob of children. Adora had to drag Catra back, reminding Catra that they’d _both_ promised to watch over the kids while the rest of Bright Moon coordinated celebration preparation after the defeat of Horde Prime. Rather than dealing with the bewildering logistics of party planning (something that Horde training didn’t cover), Adora suggested helping out with the locals instead. Catra hadn’t thought that included _babysitting._ But here they are.

Now, they are playing Hide-and-Seek. It’s a temporary reprieve from the kids, because this way Catra gets at least a few minutes of peaceful bliss before some kid shoves their face in Catra’s hiding spot and yells, “FOUND YOU!”

(Adora had to remind Catra _before_ any of this started that she needed to pick kid-friendly hiding spots, because otherwise they’d probably be searching for hours. Also, Melog was cheating.)

Their game has expanded to the entire (small) village square, and while Catra does pick spots that are kid-friendly, that doesn’t mean she’s making it _easy._

Adora, on the other hand, absolutely _sucks_ at finding hiding spots.

Which is why, for this round, Adora has decided that she’s just going hide wherever Catra hides as well. Two for one!

“What the— Adora, you can’t just hide in here!” Catra hisses, tucked inside an empty water barrel.

“Pffft, there’s no rule saying I can’t,” Adora counters, already slipping one leg into the barrel.

Catra squeaks as Adora forces herself into the barrel, dropping the lid back on above them. Almost involuntarily Catra shifts to make more room, with Adora taking up the space Catra leaves behind. It’s cramped, but somehow not uncomfortable as they’re squashed knees to knees together, their backs pressed against the barrel walls. The slats of the barrel lets in just enough light that Adora’s blue eyes can see Catra’s blue and yellow ones.

Catra crosses her arms. “I should’ve picked a tree branch if you were going to follow me. More room.”

“But then they’ve would’ve found us right away!” Adora whispers back, looking outside while the kids begin seeking.

“Oh please. I was on a rooftop in the wide open three rounds ago, and they didn’t even notice until _you_ pointed it out.”

_(Neither of them needs to consider that it’s just understood that Catra would pick a tree branch big enough to support both of them.)_

_(Because Catra always did.)_

“I don’t get it— _how_ are you so good at hiding?! You were right there!”

“Kids never look up.”

_(Adora always did.)_

Adora huffs instead, and goes back to watching out for kids via the barrel cracks. Catra yawns. “Relax, Adora. They’re supposed to find us eventually.” Pause. “Probably sooner, with _you_ here.”

“Oh come on, I’m not _that_ bad at staying quiet!”

Catra doesn’t have to say anything, just one raised eyebrow and a slow blink. _Yeaaaaaaah right._

Adora retaliates by shoving Catra’s shoulder, which turns into a shoving match, which then turns into headbutting, because that is totally logical to Horde-soldiers-turned-Rebellion-fighters, and because Adora is still a klutz even after becoming the hero of Etheria, the end result is this:

Their barrel tips over and rolls across the village square, and Adora and Catra are dumped out to the utter delight of all the kids. The game devolves back to the beginning, with a bunch of kids climbing on top of Catra.

Two things differ: Catra is laughing as she play-fights right back, putting kids in headlocks and rolling with their blows. And Adora is right next to Catra, giving as good as she gets.

Everything and nothing has changed.

_There has, and always will be, a place for you next to me._


End file.
